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How teens can fight back cyberbullying

To prevent cybercriminals from harming yourself online, keep passwords strong and in secret, do not save them in form fields within web sites or your web browser for convenience

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In the recent past, cyberbullying has emerged as a bigger challenge to deal with than physical bullying, especially in major cities where access to the Internet and social media has become almost unlimited.

In 2015, Intel Security released its Teens, Tweens and Technology Study which revealed that 81 per cent Indian children between the age of 8 and 16 were active on social media networks, and of these 22 per cent reported being bullied online. This was the highest when compared to Australia, US and Singapore being part of the survey.

With the rising number of connected devices, be it a personal computer, laptop, tablet or just a smartphone, children are spending more time on the Internet than ever before. And many issues and conflicts that were once at the classroom or a playground, are now converting into online bullying.

The much talked about 2014 Pew Research Centre report revealed that 73 per cent adults witnessed online abuse, while 40 per cent were victims of virtual attacks. The research asked respondents about six different forms of online harassment.

The research revealed that men are more likely to experience name-calling and embarrassment, while young women are particularly vulnerable to sexual harassment and stalking. Social media is the most common platform for both types of harassment, although men highlight online gaming and comments sections as other spaces where they typically encounter harassment.

What makes it more disturbing both in case of children and adults is that the nature of cyberbullying is often such that it prevents the victim from revealing the information about being bullied to their families or friends which certainly delays getting the professional help.

Emotional damage caused by cyberbullying is just as painful for an adult as it is for children. And in case of cyberbullying against adults, especially ones involving sexual harassment, victim’s reputation in the society and at workplace could also be damaged making the case all the more difficult to deal with.

Posting negative comments on pictures, and abusive posts on a user’s wall, using pictures or videos to shame or ridicule another user, using social media to stalk, hacking an account or fraudulently posing as the real account holder.

To prevent cyberbullying targeted at children, parents and teachers should educate their children about using social media, communicating with friends and strangers over social media and especially about sharing personal information with others.

Protecting their social media accounts and information available about them is another important step while in general, teaching children to respect others and to take a stand against bullying of other children can be the best possible preventive measure.

Parents should monitor what their kids are doing online, websites that their kids are visiting and mobile applications they’ve downloaded. Tracking kids’ computer usage through monitoring software that records browsing history and other PC activity can help as well. However, parents should let their kids know their activity is being monitored.

Parents also need to make sure that they protect all devices accssible by children. A security solution that uses both signature-based reactive and behaviour-based proactive detection strategies will work best to protect your computer. Such professional security software will always have a set of features that helps parents protect children from unsuitable content, set limits around the usage of the device and social media, establish healthy habits of being online while potentially protects them from cyber bullies.

Passwords can often become a reason of all your troubles online, and many researches conducted in India and abroad reveal that users do maximum possible mistakes while setting passwords for their social media accounts and emails. To prevent cybercriminals from harming yourself online, keep passwords strong and in secret, do not save them in form fields within web sites or your web browser for convenience, and don’t stay logged in when you walk away from the computer or cell phone.

TROLLING, STALKING ONLINE ISN’T FUNNY

  • Internet trolling is a common form of bullying over the Internet in an online community (such as in online gaming or social media) in order to elicit a reaction, disruption, or for their own personal amusement.
     
  • Cyberstalking is another form of bullying or harassment that uses electronic communications to stalk a victim may pose a credible threat to the safety of the victim.

(The writer is Managing Director, AV Soft Pvt Ltd, a Mumbai-based distributor business intelligence software and security solutions for businesses, government and educational organisations, as well as individual users.)

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